1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a reactor device which can be used for culturing cells, such as bacteria, yeast and fungi. In the following the invention will be described, by way of example, by referring mainly to microbial cultivation. It should, however, be observed that the reactor device can also be used for other purposes, such as tissue culture, biotransformations or chemical reactions.
2. Description of Prior Art
There are known bioreactors equipped with the necessary equipment in order to produce and control the environment needed for cultivation. However, the cultivation of microorganisms in existing bioreactors is time-consuming and laborious. The existing bioreactor equipment contains only one reactor vessel containing automated monitoring and control loops to control, for example, cultivation temperature, agitation and pH-value. Also other instruments, such as for monitoring dissolved oxygen or optical density, can be added.
The most serious drawback with the above described prior art solution is the costs involved. The price of the equipment and also the costs caused by the labor needed for manually operating the bioreactor and taking the samples are high, sometimes requiring overnight sampling. Additionally, for screening and optimization purposes a high number of cultivations are needed. In the existing bioreactors the equipment can be used only for one cultivation at a time. Thus, the time needed for experiments involving a large number of cultivations is naturally very long.